Short Stories and Other Works of Literature
by iDenis
Summary: #1: As Free As A Bird: This isn't really a fanfiction, it's a short story. It is inspired by Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and the song Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynrd  Enjoy, rate and review!


As Free As A Bird

It was a gloomy morning during that time of year that is too muggy to be autumn, but not quite cold enough to be winter that Carlos awoke to find himself greatly changed, he found everything to be dozens of times larger for some reason, his bed easily swamped him, and for some reason he had woken standing up, which he found perplexing. Carlos tried raising his arms to give him a sense of perspective, but for some reason he could not move them forwards, and when he tried to take a peek at them, straining his neck in the process, all he saw was what appeared to be a shaggy black drapery over his arms. "I really must be going insane," he told himself, but all that came out of his strangely shaped and foreign mouth was an indistinguishable flurry of squeaks and chirps.

He wanted to get out of his room, but the door was closed tight and he was not sure he could open it. He remained there, standing immobile in his melancholy, certain he would remain here for years, or until he reverted to his normal phase of existence. He was just about to give up all hope when a sudden draft of cold air from the window he had left open last night. He hopped over to the window and climbed out. It took a moment for him to get adjusted to the new scale of his life, but then he saw a puddle of water not ten feet away. Looking at his reflection in the puddle, Carlos finally realized what had happened to him. His legs were spindly, leathery things ending in three toes with things that were not quite claws, but were definitely more than fingernails; his body had shifted orientation to a more horizontal slope, and was covered in that delicate-feeling black shag; he had a rather decent tuft of the shag growing from his rear, his arms had moved backwards and were covered in shag; his head was small, narrow, and ended in a hard little cone of a mouth. He had become a blackbird.

The shock of this metamorphosis was too much for Carlos; he simply collapsed on the ground at his feet and lay there for days.  
Carlos was a practical man, he realized upon his awakening that if he was to be stuck as a bird for any period of time, he must learn to be one, how to fly, how to walk, how to sing, how to live.

Singing and walking he found easy enough, it was close enough to what it was as a human being, but flying and living trumped him, he wanted to put off flight for last because it was foreign to him, and he was like to hurt himself if he failed as well. But try as he might he could not find the one thing that gave birds a primal joy equal to the one that he felt on stage in front of hundreds of people as a person, so, reluctantly, he attempted his first flight.

Being scared of pain and death, he chose to start his flight from a moderate height, having observed birds fly, he thought he might know how to move in order to take flight. He jumped off of the park bench that was his perch and started flapping frantically in fear, only to hit the dirt with a muffled thud. This he tried a few dozen times, but eventually he managed to find the right speed of wing strokes to keep his battered body from hitting the ground. In his awe, he forgot to keep flapping, and as such fell again. However, his success only emboldened him to try from greater heights, and within a couple of days he was flying well enough to attempt takeoffs from tall, downtown office buildings.

This was where he found his satisfaction.

There was some wonder in the way he could effortlessly go anywhere and see anything, without great exertion on his part. It gave him deep-seated thrills to see the whole world open itself up before his very eyes, and he realized that this was why birds and all manner of flying creatures never seemed sad. When they had melancholy, all they had to do was spread their wings and take off into the glory that is the sky.

The peace and solitude made Carlos begin to think about his condition some more, and he realized the people he was leaving behind. His family, while not the best, was loving and kind-hearted; his girlfriend, who was, again, not perfect, but pretty close, was one of the things in life that gave him great satisfaction; and his friends, all his friends, they had grown up together, laughed together, fought together, and they would all miss each other if they were separated. That would be the hardest, but he knew that they would all try to find new people to help fill the gaping, super-massive black hole that he had unwillingly left in their lives. At this point, he let himself fall to the ground.

This time he lay there, sick with guilt, for a whole two weeks before rising again.

When he rose, he decided to find all his friends and family to see how they had dealt with their loss. His friends were all hanging out on the main street, laughing and joking with a new friend, as was expected, but behind their smiling eyes, Carlos could see the sadness and loss that was heavy on their shoulders. His girlfriend, or was she an ex now, was the same, but his family was just distraught, which tore him right apart.

For another week he remained, a broken shell of a blackbird, strains of The Beatles and other classic bands drifting through his head.

Eventually Carlos realized that living in anything besides the present was foolish. If one dwelled in the past, they would be swept up in melancholy and depression, while if they worried about the future, they would become paranoid, freaking out about any change. But if he just lived in the moment, he could live life the way he wanted to, without any worries or sadness.

Carlos took to the wing, and was determined to never look back. He told himself that, "Maybe I will become a human again someday." And he just kept flying

And somewhere from over the city, a 70's classic came wafting through the hills and valleys, traveling through the air, land and water to reach people's ears

_For I must be travelling on, now, 'cause there's too many places I've got to see. But, if I stayed here with you, girl, things just couldn't be the same. 'Cause I'm as free as a bird now, and this bird you can not change. __  
__Lord knows, I cannot change…_


End file.
